[Tutor] A couple newbie questions about Python

[Dave Angel]

Deb Wyatt <codemonkey at inbox.com> Wrote in message:
> Hi.  Everywhere I have read, the 'standard practice' for indentation is 4 spaces, but I am running into 2 space indentation in a lot of tutorials and such.  Should I keep with the 4 spaces, or does it even matter, as long as it is consistent?
> 

4 spaces is an excellent choice in my opinion,  and many other
 people's.  We just tell our editor to turn the tab key into 4
 column alignment and pretty much forget about it.
 

The python interpreter doesn't care. But other people's opinions
 will matter as soon as you share your code, or work on a multi
 person project. 

Note that when you're looking at other people's code,  you may be
 seeing it differently than they,  chief reason being html (thank
 you for remembering to post here in text). The other reason you
 may think they're using 2 is proportional spacing. It should be
 off for code.

> I just recently became aware of the inaccuracy of calculations using floats and I am concerned about that.  
> 
>

I learned programming in 1967 with Fortran,  and McCracken spent a
 chapter warning about that same thing. Probably everything he
 warned about still applies to Python and modern computers.  It is
 impossible to do serious computing for long without running into
 these issues.  But Python has as many ways of avoiding them as
 any mainstream language.  You can use decimal to avoid some types
 of problems,  and fractions to avoid others.  And common sense
 for others.  You will need to understand your tools.
 

BTW,  calculators and spreadsheets frequently use decimal rather
 than binary,  and I wrote a decimal floating package for a
 computer in the mid 70's.  It didn't even offer binary.
 



-- 
DaveA